The “Lord of the Cobblestones” speeds up the pace so that there are no obstacles in Rome

Giovanni, aged 55, huffs and puffs as he hammers away at one of the cobblestones that make up Rome's floor. That's 6 hours a day, sold among believers and touristsbecause there is no time to lose: the Vatican environment must be perfect in three weeks, for the start of Jubilee.

“But when I get home it doesn't hurt at all, the worker boasts in an ironic tone, in a break that is certainly necessary, despite the fact that work takes place against the clock!

Next December 24, Pope Francis the jubilee will officially begin for the entire following year, offer forgiveness of sins to anyone who makes a pilgrimage to Romewhile the Vatican expects the arrival of at least 30 million believers throughout this event.

Therefore, the Roman authorities are now busy, in the extreme, in repairing the often battered and drained soil of the city and surrounding areas of the Holy See, in a deliberate effort to avoid frightens and hinders among the pilgrims.

But traditional Roman paving is, like everything else in this city, unique and historiccomposed of an infinite number of cubic basalt cobbles quarried from its volcanic outskirts and popularly known as 'sampietrina'as they were first used in the 1700s to cover St. Peter's Square.

Hence, the maintenance of this giant slab of black stone, which some casual officials have calculated at about 65 million tiles, more or less, requires special care, performed by those who still master the craft, as a form of liturgy.

The City Council started last summer The 'Sampietrinos Plan' with 30 million euros to fix the most central streets of the eternal city and now the work has reached 'Borgo Pio', one of the beautiful neighborhoods of The surroundings of the Vatican.

There, among the sacred and profane bars and souvenir shops, a team of five men, led by foreman Giancarlo, spends the day with eyes on the ground.

The boss tears up the old 'sampietrinos' with the -blessed- help of an excavator, two workers clean and polish them if required and three nail them back into the ground: they place them in a layer of gravel, with four taps. hammer them in and then make sure they are straight with a board.

Giovanni sinks his knee into the ground, wisely protected by a pillow wrapped in a plastic bag, and begins to work: “I work every day for about six or seven hours and put some 2500 or 3000 paving stones, “What do I know”, he confesses vaguely, while in the background a radio illuminates the work with the songs of the moment.

“But they pay well,” says the man.born in Romania, even though it is spoken in 'Romanesco', the dialect of 'popular' Rome, glued to the mouth paving the city for the last 26 years.

The worker knows that it is an almost artisanal craft, requiring years of learning, and therefore expresses doubts about his future… well, understandably. Almost no young person dreams of working hard with this job..

However, one of his colleagues is only 27 years old, Virgilio, sitting among mountains of cobblestones, spends hours sharpening their edges with a small hammer so they can fit perfectly into the pavement.

“Whatever they put me in, I do everything,” this guy from a Roman town explains somewhat shyly into the microphone, promising that, despite the rigors of the job, he likes it and wants to keep it.

The work at Borgo Pío is proceeding apace and unabated and a large part of the street already has a perfectly stable pavement, lined with 'sampietrinos' and mounted with a resin special.

Thus Rome will be able amaze the world during the jubileecalled by the popes every quarter century, bringing back the shine to the roads where a trip, if not a sprained leg, often becomes another form of tourist souvenir.

Raphael Alberti already wrote about it in his first collection of poems from his Roman exile, cleverly titled 'Rome, danger for pedestrians' (1968): “Try not to look at the monuments, wanderer, if you walk through Rome, open a hundred eyes, perfect your pupils, slave only to its pavements. If you want to live, turn into a dove.”

By Gonzalo Sánchez and Claudia Sacristán, from EFE